According to Bing Maps, AMC Entertainment is moving 19.0 miles (21 minutes of driving), from Missouri and into Kansas.

I’m not condoning this use of tax dollars, and I don’t disagree with The Kansas City Star that it’s “corporate welfare.” But at the same time, I don’t feel at all sorry for Kansas City, MO, when they would use the same type of tax incentives if they could. Indeed, as The Star reports (emphasis added):

AMC is the third major Kansas City business to move to Kansas in less than two years, the others being JPMorgan Retirement Plan services, which moved 800 jobs to Overland Park, and KeyBank Real Estate Capital, which took 300 jobs to Overland Park.

In May, Kansas City retaliated and attracted Applebee’s International and its 390 jobs from Lenexa [Kansas] with the aid of a $12.6 million state and city incentive package.

These are the kinds of economic consequences, when KCMO has a 1% earnings tax (a tax on your wages, even if you live in Kansas, not counting investment income); when KCMO has pricey and miserable “public” schools; when the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and The Star oppose school choice (effectively, capitalism for education); and when the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and The Star both support the 1% earnings tax.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — AMC Entertainment has announced plans to move its headquarters and about 450 of its employees to Leawood, Kan. AMC said it will relocate to Leawood’s Park Place near 119th Street and Nall Avenue in 2013. Its corporate office is located in downtown Kansas City.

The AMC deal was sweetened by a reported $47 million incentive package from Kansas and will cost downtown 400 jobs when the firm leaves 10 Main for Leawood. The company said its current downtown location was inadequate.

Even in the often bizarro world of corporate welfare, the new deal involving AMC Entertainment stands out as a financially irresponsible use of taxpayer funds.

The private business will get a reported $47 million in public incentives to leave its corporate headquarters in downtown Kansas City and move to Leawood, one of the area’s wealthiest suburbs, where the median family income is nearly $150,000 a year.

Kansas taxpayers will help AMC move its 400 employees a few miles to a brand new building, leaving behind empty office space in the heart of Kansas City.